


Off-center

by TheMajesticTrilobite



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Other, Sensorite mourning traditions, Serial: s007 The Sensorites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 08:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8155883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMajesticTrilobite/pseuds/TheMajesticTrilobite
Summary: The Second Elder's family-group receive news of hir death.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have this head-canon that Sensorites are hermaphroditic egg-laying mammals (like a platypus), so I’m using gender neutral pronouns here. Zie stands for he/she, hir stands for him/her.  
> This whole thing makes very little sense without having seen 'The Sensorites', and doesn’t really have any sort of plot, but I just have so many feels about the Second Elder that I had to do something with them… so this little bit of angst was born. This is basically just me, feeling sorry for the Second Elder and hir family group.

Zie watches the plain outfit of the palace servant walk away after delivering hir news. The Second Elder, hir lifelong partner, hir other-heart-and-mind, a good parent, a good grandparent, and the best Sensorite zie’s ever known, is dead.

As the Second Elder’s partner and head of the family-group, it now falls to hir to deliver the news to the others. How will zie tell their children that their first-parent was murdered? How will zie tell the hatchlings that their grandparent is dead? They will have to dim the lights again. And only a month after their third cousin was lost to the sickness. To think the halls will again be dark and full of the soft hum of mourning-song so soon...

But the messenger had said that the sickness was cured. The little ones will never have to fear it again, they and their hatchlings and the hatchlings after them will never have to fear again. Hir partner was loyal to the end, zie protected hir family-group and made sure no one would have to suffer in their stead.

The Second Elder was born with hir heart off-center. Zie used to tease hir that it was for this reason that zie was so good: to make up for hir misplaced heart, at least hir metaphorical one had to always be in the right place. And now zie had paid the price for hir goodness. 

Zie sighs and telepathically summons the rest of the family-group. They will mourn their loss together, the lights turned low so that the darkness may carry their voices to the Waiting River and help their loved one to cross. Suddenly, the empty feeling of loss is so great in hir chest, zie thinks that hir heart must have been displaced and ended up off-center as well, to match that of hir partner. But as he turns to face the Sensorites slowly gathering, zie can’t help but feel pride along with hir sadness. Zie is glad to have made hir home-nest with hir Sensorite with the off-center heart . Zie is glad to have loved the Second Elder of the Sense-Sphere.


End file.
